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Welcome to this month’s newsletter! This month, we’re focusing on solutions for a problem that plagues almost all of us: poor time management.
Like diets and exercise, improved time management is a New Year’s resolution often left on the side of the road by March or April. And like all resolutions, we dive into it with the greatest of intentions – and then slowly lose interest until the goal is all but forgotten. Or we may actually
implement a time management system, and have it work well in the short term, only to see chaos creep slowly back into your life after a while.

So, how do you create a time management system that works once and for all?

The secret to an effective time management system lies in the balance between the two types of perceptual time: Internal and external time.

External time: Most time management systems focus on only external time. External time measures the duration of events and enables scheduling. It is structured and constant, whether you are measuring hours, days or years. Because it is a physical reality, external time is beyond your control.

Internal Time Unlike external time (which is constant), internal time differs from person to person and fluctuates with every activity. Internal time is more like a sense of time than time itself.

How to master time management using Internal and External Time

The only way to master time management is to discover how you relate to internal time – and then learn and apply new skills to achieve the best possible time management system.

Because discovering your relationship with time must be done with self- reflection, ask yourself some important questions:

What do I want?

What are my setbacks?

Do I try to fit a double workload into a single day?

Do I have difficulty saying no to a request for my time?

Do I have a tendency to procrastinate?

Next, take a look at how you presently use the time you have. Take a moment analyze why you procrastinate? It is very important to know that you cannot defeat a problem without first getting to its root. Consider what sort of things stand in the way of your accomplishing the most important things in your life.

Tracking your time – each and every day!

To be successful in time management, you must first take a look at how you presently use the time you have. Perform the following tasks to get a handle on how your time is spent on a daily basis. You may find the results very surprising!

Keep a record of each activity you participate in within a 24 period of time.

Group your finding into following categories, Productive, wasteful, interruption, family time and work time.

Learn to prioritize: What do you need? What do you want? Where do you want to be?

Know your terms: The differences between “important” and “urgent” are subtle but understanding them will make prioritizing that much easier. Think of things that are important to you: your family, you friends, your career, and your future. They are basic motivation that drive and guide your life. Now consider urgencies: a ringing doorbell or telephone, an email from your superior saying that he needs you “now”. Take conscious control of your decision-making. Do you respond to the urgent, even if it is relatively unimportant, and shun the important, unless it also carries a sense of urgency? Pose these fascinating questions to yourself and reevaluate your to do list, keeping your goals and values in mind, and prioritize accordingly.

Accomplish more in Less Time: Now you know what you want to achieve, learn how to pass off jobs you never wanted to do.

Use the 80/20 rule. Assign a scale of value to your different activities for each activity; record how long you worked, whether or not the task was completed. Rank it according to its place on your value scale.

Multitasking: Saving time by multitasking works well with jobs that take little concentration, but avoid it for jobs that require additional focus. Poorly managed multitasking can be quite counterproductive.

Distraction: A distraction is anything that pulls your attention away from what you are currently working on. If you notice you get distracted easily, keep a close eye on what you should be working on, and stay focused.

Interruptions: Create boundaries to help diminish the amount of interruptions you experience with friends, family and co-workers.

Delegate: To have a good time management system, you want to delegate tasks, but do not take it too far. Remember others are trying to manage their time effectively as well.

Change: Read the warning label!

As you seek to change the way you live, prepare yourself: all change, including change in personal habits, is stressful. Old habits are hard to break, and daily life patterns are the most deeply ingrained habits of all.

There are times when you may feel over-whelmed by it all. Remember to be gentle with yourself. Do one thing at a time, with all of your energy, your attention, and your heart. With all the planning, evaluating, and scheduling involved in this process, don’t try to do too much.